The following is a sample chapter from the book Ultimate Things: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on the End Times, by D.E. Englemen. Although Orthodoxy does not have an official and dogmatic position on the later times, this book provides very useful information from the Holy Fathers and Scripture.
Chapter 6
The Beginning of the Last Days
“Who places earthly kings on their thrones? He who alone sits on the throne of fire from eternity, and alone, in the true sense, rules over all creation. Authority, power, courage, and wisdom is given the Czar from the Lord to govern his subjects.”
—Saint John of Kronstadt
The prospect of Satan’s thousand-year bondage eventually ending, even though for a short while, has worried people since before it began. It has been an ominous cloud on the horizon which has loomed larger and blacker with each passing century. Though the event was distant for them, the Bible’s Prophets and Apostles described it in the direst terms: “That day is a day of wrath . . . a day of darkness and gloominess” (Zephaniah 1:15); “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time” (Daniel 12:1); “in the last days perilous times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1).